Limited Time: 50,000 Mile Bonus On United MileagePlus Explorer Card

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For a limited time, Chase is offering an increased sign-up bonus of 50,000 United MileagePlus miles on the United MileagePlus® Explorer Cardafter spending $3,000 in the first three months. You can also earn an additional 5,000 bonus miles when you add an authorized user and they make a purchase in the first three months. That’s potentially a total of 55,000 MileagePlus miles, which is the best publicly available offer I’ve seen on the card in a long time.

I find the flexibility of Ultimate Rewards points to be incredibly valuable, since you can also transfer those points to Hyatt Gold Passport, Korean Air SkyPass, Singapore KrisFlyer, etc.

However, this is a great card for bolstering your United balances, and particularly for United flyers. Admittedly MileagePlus miles aren’t as valuable as they were pre-devaluation, but there are still some good uses of them.

Earning miles with the MileagePlus Explorer Business Card

2x miles per dollar spent at restaurants, gas stations, and office supply stores

1x mile dollar spent on everything else

10,000 bonus miles after spending $25,000 on the card in a calendar year

So these actually can be a rewarding card for everyday spend, assuming you spend quite a bit in non-bonused categories and spend at least $25,000.

MileagePlus Explorer Card benefits

Both cards also comes with some additional benefits, including:

Two United Club passes per year

Priority boarding for the card member and passengers on the same reservation

Free first checked bag on United operated flights for card member and one companion on the same reservation when purchasing tickets with their United MileagePlus Explorer personal or business Card. See www.united.com/chasebag for details.

Benefits for United flyers

There are two main perks that are worth mentioning for people who fly United on a regular basis.

Firstly, by having a co-branded MileagePlus credit card, the Premier Qualifying Dollars requirement for Premier Silver, Premier Gold and Premier Platinum qualification is waived if you spend at least $25,000 on the card in the year. Given you’d also receive the threshold bonus for spending $25,000 on the card, this is a good option for those flyers.

Bottom line

This is a great sign-up bonus, and the card comes with some worthwhile benefits for United flyers. Furthermore, this is a card that it can make sense to put spend on, assuming you spend at least $25,000 on the card per year.

Non-Affiliate Product Disclaimer: The information for the United MileagePlus® Explorer Business Card, Ink Plus® Business Credit Card, and Ink Business Cash℠ Credit Card have been collected independently by One Mile At A Time. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

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About luckyBen Schlappig (aka Lucky) is a travel consultant, blogger, and avid points collector.
He travels about 400,000 miles a year, primarily using miles and points to fund his first class experiences.
He chronicles his adventures, along with industry news, here at One Mile At A Time.

Regarding Comments: The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

Oh yeah, hurry up quick, this is a limited time offer!
Just like the “store closing, everything must go!” sale down at Roscoe’s Oriental Rugs – the store that has been “going out of business” for the past 3 years.
This is a standard offer, which comes and goes every month or two. There are better offers out there for this card, which do not enrich dishonest bloggers.

@chris – yes as long as you pay for your award taxes/fees with your Explorer card under T&Cs (#5):
Primary Cardmembers are eligible to receive applicable standard checked bag(s) free when they use their miles to book award travel on United-operated flights, as long as they pay for their award ticket taxes and service charges with their qualifying Card and include their MileagePlus account number in their reservation.

What is the likelihood of getting approved for two chase cards at once? (ie. United personal + United business)? Anyone have experience of getting two chase cards approved on the same day? Just wondering if I should space out the applications (Was approved for Chase IHG reward card back in February this year)

How long does it take for miles to post in your account after the CC statement ends? My gf got this card, and statement closed 2 days ago, and we are waiting on this bonus so we can book award flights. On her Chase account, it says that the miles were credited 2 days ago, but her United account is not showing them.I thought that normally it’s a 1-2 day process?

Super-annoying, as we’d like to book the flights before availability dwindles away

@ Matthew — The terms say the following:
“This new cardmember bonus offer is not available to either (i) current cardmembers of this consumer credit card, or (ii) previous cardmembers of this consumer credit card who received a new cardmember bonus for this consumer credit card within the last 24 months”

Based on my interpretation you should be eligible as long as you got the bonus more than 24 months ago (even if you had the card open more recently).

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